About

Welcome to The Culture Mind.

This blog has been named in tribute to the author Iain M. Banks and his ubiquitous future perfect as personified by his loose group of novels premised around “The Culture”. Special Circumstances clearances are not required for this information stream. It is unencrypted.

Short Version

Drawing upon 15+ years experience in retail, automotive, digital & architectural engineering, I enjoy defining the commercial strategy and integration of marketing and technology into business, with the practical delivery of underlying policy, process and governance.

I’m a strong advocate of work/life balance, fostering a positive, supportive culture of excellence that is sustainable as well as financially and intellectually rewarding.

I invite you to explore this blog that represents my thoughts both personal & professional and welcome feedback.

Long Version

I have a varied background and upbringing – having grown up in metropolitan inner city Melbourne, Australia with a fantastic family, moving to the outer burbs in my early teens and embracing a much more “Australian” existence of “get on with it”. I now have my own family – baby daughter, infant son & lovely wife, who are my contribution to the 2+2 existence of this world.

My first job baking bread at 1am on the graveyard shift at the local bakery when I was 15 entailed “get on with it” in the most literal sense – if you missed the bake, you lost money and customer good will and expectation for what you didn’t make. From here, I entered University, worked towards attaining my degree and whilst completing this odyssey, I moved into retail which ended up consuming me for the next few years. This state of existence was basically a paid extended university education where I had a few wins, made a few mistakes, and got taught an extraordinary amount of useful stuff. Most importantly, it taught me more than anything the one immutable fact – I don’t know everything nor could ever profess to possibly be in such a position to ever claim that. In other words – it taught me how much I don’t know.

In my late twenties I got into automotive for a few years with Subaru, and then wound up as a node in the digital space – working for Areeba, a high end Digital Services agency based in Melbourne, Australia for almost 7 years, working alongside clients and colleagues deciphering problems in the digital realm. In my role, I was responsible for the pitches, proposals and strategic consulting for our clients across the business and ensuring the staff were covering all the bases in all aspects.

2011, I joined a start-up business for a short period, and underwent a transformation that saw me consolidate and realise what I wanted to do with my career and personal growth.

In 2012, I was approached by Inhabit, to take on the responsibility of realigning and building upon their brand, activating their social media, formalising the business’ corporate communications and consolidating their IT whilst putting process and order into a business that has grown from 1 office to 8 globally in the space of 2 years. And with little in the way of slow down, it’s been a journey which I have approached with gusto and relished. I’m working with a fantastic bunch of people, who are smart, committed to excellence and making our world a better place, with more efficient buildings, safer access systems and influencing the creation of the built environment with some of the worlds foremost architectural firms.

I often get asked what my job is – usually by people that have little to no interest in the mechanics and minutiae with which I find such a joy in my day to day. This often makes me think of how is it that an engineer, accountant, doctor or similar “profession” gets by with a simple comment about their field of endeavour and people nod sagely in understanding? How to make Change Management, Brand and IT work together in harmony, but underpinned by responsible Corporate Governance so that the business rises to an aspirational level within the industry, but outside of it as well? How to communicate the understanding and ultimately the sage nod is one of knowing as opposed to polite ignorance and acceptance? With that, simply put, I present that I help organisations achieve their business goals, across multiple channels of IT, Marketing, Brand and Corporate Governance. I spend much of my job advising and consulting with the business to ensure there is understanding, accountability and measuring of effort and gains.

So this blog is an insight and a glimpse of the way I work and how I rationalise much of the business advice I articulate everyday.

I have a great life – it is really good and I’m thankful for the people I meet and interact with daily.

Thanks for looking, and enjoy my observations. I encourage you to comment on any of my posts, as I am genuinely interested in hearing the thoughts of people from all walks of life.